This invention relates to the packing or bundling of articles for storage and shipment, and more particularly to the packing or bundling of articles such as packages of rolls of paper, e.g., packages comprising four rolls of toilet tissue wrapped in plastic film, or rolls of paper toweling.
The assignee of this invention has for some years supplied to the paper industry in Europe machinery for accumulating a number of rolls of toilet tissue or household paper toweling and overwrapping the rolls in wrapper of polyethylene film, as an economic alternative to packing the rolls in cartons or cases of corrugated paperboard.
The stated overwrap method is not a viable method for the U.S.A., however, because U.S. producers of rolls of toilet tissue and paper toweling require that the wrapped bundle have an identical configuration to the existing corrugated case, that it be printed on all four sides, and that it be able to go through existing handling systems, including automatic palletizing and automatic warehousing and dewarehousing which require the use of optical scanners to read pre-printed pre-positioned codes. The U.S. carton configuration is substantially larger than that in Europe, and is close to being a cube. This has made modification of the assignee's existing overwrapping equipment to meet the requirements of the U.S. paper industry well-nigh impossible.